Beyond Part C: Reducing Middle School Special Education for Early Intervention Children with Developmental Delays

This study examined the rates of special education placement during middle school grades (sixth through eighth) among children who participated in the Linda Ray Intervention Program (LRIP) center-based and home-based learning modalities. The study sample included 113 children in Miami Dade County Public Schools who had gestational cocaine exposure and received early intervention services due to developmental delays. This study found that children who participated in the center-based (25 hours per week) learning modality had a significantly lower rate of special education placement (14%) than the students in the home-based (three hours per week) learning modality (30%) in middle school. Also, results indicated that children who were socioeconomically disadvantaged (free/reduced lunch) and in the home-based learning modality were three to four times more likely to be in special education. This study provides evidence for the long-term impact of the LRIP center-based modality on special education outcomes.     

Volunteer associations in the Internet age: Ecological approach to understanding collective action

This study draws on theories of collective action and organizational ecology to investigate a particular type of voluntary association: mixed-mode groups. Mixed-mode groups are created and organized online to meet physically in geographically defined ways. An online survey was conducted with 171 randomly sampled groups on Meetup.com—a website that facilitates the creation and coordination of mixed-mode groups. Analysis shows that even when a mixed-mode group implements strategies focused on internal group processes, it benefits from tapping into its external networks to obtain resources for group operation. Also, the differential impacts of internal and external strategies indicate that in the case of environment-prone mixed-mode groups, implementation of internal strategies alone, with or without solicited external networking resources, is helpful for generating positive group outcomes. Together, these results establish that boundary spanning represents not only a type of strategic action to obtain resources and produce positive outcomes but also an inherent and defining mechanism of contemporary voluntary groups for engaging in collective action.     

Sibling Differences in Divorced Families

Sibling differences in family processes and individual adjustment were examined for 133 sibling pairs (10–18 years old) in divorced families. Although all siblings differed, siblings who lived apart after their parents' divorce differed more than siblings who lived together, contradicting past research that found negligible effects of shared environment on sibling similarities. The possibility that siblings might live apart because they were initially more different was considered. This hypothesis was not supported in the limited tests permitted by the data. Differences in family processes were associated with differences in adjustment for pairs who lived together as well as pairs who lived apart.     

Designing Classrooms for Diversity: Fostering Social Inclusion

Responding to the growing diversity of students within North American schools today, educators have recognized the value of social inclusion as an important goal, supporting both social-emotional and academic success for all students. This special issue explores how teachers play a significant role in promoting inclusive classes by understanding the social dynamics that operate in educational contexts. Addressing a number of different forms that diversity can take (gender, ethnicity, physical and/or mental exceptionalities), these articles rightfully focus attention on group processes that promote inclusion versus exclusion and their impact, and underscore the need for teacher training in such efforts. Supporting and extending this discussion, we present an overview of recent efforts to promote “universal design for learning” in education, which focuses on academic as well as social inclusion, in hopes that educators consider even broader approaches to celebrating diversity and teaching students to relate to others with acceptance and respect.     

Factors affecting placement decisions of children following short-term emergency care

Case files of 424 residents at an emergency treatment center for abused and neglected children were used to generate a beginning set of variables which, in combination, predicted whether or not children from the center would be discharged to their natural family environment. Variables with descending order of predictive significance were place from which the child was admitted, the length of time spent in treatment, the age and the race of the child, Other variables--the number of siblings, the child's sex and the presence of physical/sexual abuse--did not approach significance.     

The effects of phonological transparency on reading derived words

The purpose of this study was to determine whether poor readers have more pronounced problems than average-reading peers reading derived words the base forms of which undergo a phonological shift when a suffix is added (i.e., shift relations as in “natural”), as compared to derived words whose forms are phonologically and orthographically transparent (i.e., stable relations, as in “cultural”). Two computer-based word recognition tasks (Naming and Lexical Decision) were administered to children with reading disability (RD), peers with average reading ability, and adults. Across tasks, there was an effect for transparency (i.e., better performance on stable than shift words) for both child groups and the adults. For the children, a significant interaction was found between group and word type. Specifically, on the naming task, there was an advantage for the stable words, and this was most noteworthy for the children with RD. On the lexical decision task, trade-offs of speed and accuracy were evident for the child reader groups. Performances on the nonwords showed the poor readers to be comparable to the average readers in distinguishing legal and illegal nonwords; further analyses suggested that poor readers carried out deeper processing of derived words than their average reading peers. Additional study is needed to explore the relation of orthographic and phonological processing on poor readers’ memory for and processing of derived words.     

Introduction to the Special Issue on Teaching Inquiry (Part II): Implementing Inquiry

Abstract

We provide an introduction to the special issue on Teaching Inquiry, through its motivation and themes, focusing here on Part II: Implementing Inquiry.     

A cognitive analysis of Cauchy’s conceptions of function,continuity, limit and infinitesimal,with implications for teaching the calculus

In this paper, we use theoretical frameworks from mathematics education and cognitive psychology to analyse Cauchy’s ideas of function, continuity, limit and infinitesimal expressed in his Cours D’Analyse. Our analysis focuses on the development of mathematical thinking from human perception and action into more sophisticated forms of reasoning and proof, offering different insights from those afforded by historical or mathematical analyses. It highlights the conceptual power of Cauchy’s vision and the fundamental change involved in passing from the dynamic variability of the calculus to the modern set-theoretic formulation of mathematical analysis. This offers a re-evaluation of the relationship between the natural geometry and algebra of elementary calculus that continues to be used in applied mathematics, and the formal set theory of mathematical analysis that develops in pure mathematics and evolves into the logical development of non-standard analysis using infinitesimal concepts. It suggests that educational theories developed to evaluate student learning are themselves based on the conceptions of the experts who formulate them. It encourages us to reflect on the principles that we use to analyse the developing mathematical thinking of students, and to make an effort to understand the rationale of differing theoretical viewpoints.     

The effect of drawing on children's experiences of investigations following alleged child abuse

The primary aim of the study was to evaluate investigative interviews from the perspectives of the children, comparing children who drew with children who did not. One hundred twenty-five children, alleged victims of sexual abuse, were asked about their investigative experience. The uniqueness of the study is that all of the interviews were conducted according to the NICHD Protocol and that children were randomly assigned into one of the two research conditions (drawing vs. non-drawing). The results clearly demonstrate the advantage that drawing has on the children's experience of the investigation, with children in the drawing group more often reporting feelings of hope and success. This study provides practical guidelines for practitioners by emphasizing the beneficial effects that drawing can have. The study stresses the importance of integrating into forensic investigations interventions that enhance children's testimonies and ensure that the investigation is an empowering experience that generates feelings of trust, self-worth, and justice.